So how does our scientific understanding guide as to constructing a new way of looking at the challenge, as to what is happening, what is safe, and how we should respond?

The Victorian Climate Action Network held a workshop on these questions on 11 September 2016. The slides below were the contribution by David Spratt to the first session, which asked the question ‘Why is emergency-scale action necessary?’.

David Spratt’s 33 powerpoint slides:

David Spratt

“We need to understand the gravity of the climate emergency and get to the bottom of what science actually demands.”David Spratt

NASA: Record hot August, and year to date

NASA has released its temperature data for August 2016: warmest August in 136 years.

It was 0.98°C warmer than the mid-20th century average.

This makes August 1.23°C warmer than the 1880-1909 baseline (when observational records commence).

It is also the hottest August on record.

NASA stated: “August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.”

In addition:

“The record warm August continued a streak of 11 consecutive months dating back to October 2015 that have set new monthly high-temperature records.”